


Complicated

by FreedomWhistle



Series: Chicago's Angel [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Cassie and Garcia are a formidable duo, Cassie calls him Chicago, Cassie's family only really shows up in The Fisher King, Cassie's got some SEC~RETS, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Derek calls her Angel, Elle's underrated and overhated, F/M, Family Issues, Multi, Original Episode(s), Rated M because Criminal Minds, Slow Burn, Spencer's a bean, but doesn't everybody?, cassie's a badass, like really slow burn, season 1-2, technically Morquinn doesn't even happen until book 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:15:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27608840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreedomWhistle/pseuds/FreedomWhistle
Summary: [Seasons 1-2 of Criminal Minds]"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated," ~Confucius-----For the last three years, Cassidy Quinn has lived on the mainland US, working with the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Unit in order to catch the worst criminals the country has to offer.Cassie is one of those people that you just can't help but like, a fact that her partner, Derek Morgan, begins to realize in a glaringly obvious way.But, they both have their secrets, and Cassidy's is one she isn't eager to bring out into the open anytime soon, but, as time goes on, and she and Derek grow closer, Cassie realizes that sometimes, secrets just can't...or won't...stay buried.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & The BAU Team, Aaron Hotchner/Haley Hotchner, Derek Morgan/Original Female Character(s), Emily Prentiss & Spencer Reid, Jason Gideon & Original Female Character(s), Jason Gideon & Spencer Reid, Original Female Character(s) & Original Male Character(s), Penelope Garcia & Derek Morgan, Penelope Garcia & Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia & Original Female Character(s), Spencer Reid & Original Female Character(s), Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Series: Chicago's Angel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018573
Kudos: 11





	1. Extreme Aggressor

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Wattpad a while ago, but now I wanted to post it on AO3.
> 
> This is a crossover between CM and H 5-O, but considering the face-claim, I have for Cassie is Michelle Borth, Catherine Rollins doesn't exist, and Cassie instead grew up with Steve McGarrett like her brother. Ally is the OC for my Steve McGarrett fic, Aloha Mau Loa, which, timeline-wise, I'll start around Season 6 of Criminal Minds, and Detective Carter will pop up once or twice throughout my Criminal Minds books before I start on the Five-0 ones.
> 
> Cast:  
> Michelle Borth as Cassidy Quinn (27-28 in Season 1)  
> Minka Kelly as Allison Carter (25 in Season 1)  
> John Wesley Shipp as Elijah Abbott--> Cassie's biological father  
> Tom Selleck as Arthur Quinn-->Cassie's step-father  
> Geena Davis as Lydia Abbott-Quinn-->Cassie's mother  
> Anne Hathaway as Bridget Quinn-->Cassie's sister (24 in Season 1)  
> Vanessa Marano as Nisha Quinn--> Cassie's half-sister (13 in Season 1)  
> David Mazouz as Jacob Quinn--> Cassie's adoptive brother (4 in Season 1)  
> Grant Gustin as Barry Quinn--> Cassie's cousin (15 in Season 1)

One thing that Cassidy Briana Quinn prided herself on was her ability to read people. Her friend Penelope sometimes called her the " _Human Polygraph_ ", a joke from a year ago that had sort of somehow... _stuck_.

It also helped her with her job, being a gifted profiler within the Behavioral Analysis Unit at the FBI for the last three years, after transferring to Quantico from the Honolulu field office.

But, there were always a select few that Cassie _wasn't_ able to read. One of them being her partner, and closest friend, Derek Morgan.

The twenty-seven-year-old didn't know what it was, but her partner had always been sort of an enigma to her, even in the three years that they had known each other. Cassie was confident in the notion that she knew Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan better than most people, but even there were things he wouldn't share with her.

She did the same with him, but, that was a story for another day, and as of right now, today was not that day, as Cassie pushed open the door of the bar where Derek had said he would be after he had called her earlier.

And, true to her partner's word, there Morgan was, dressed in a dark suit that accentuated his brown skin as he stood at a high bar table, conversing with some of the FBI Academy cadets.

It wasn't below Cassie for her to not realize that her partner was a handsome man, most of the other female agents in the Bureau were _well_ aware of that fact, but it had never really affected their working relationship all that much.

At least not any more than it did whenever a male agent flirted with Cassie. She'd gone on a few casual dates since joining the BAU, but none of them ever really went anywhere.

Their line of work didn't really help with the whole "stable relationship" thing.

"1940s," Cassie heard Derek say as she neared the table. Apparently, he was quizzing the cadets, by also letting them take shots with each question. "He put bombs in train stations _and_ movie theaters,"

The three cadets scrambled for the answer before finally, one of the young women snapped her head up, looking almost giddy.

"The Mad Bomber, George Metesky," the young woman said, and Cassie was able to hear the proud grin in Morgan's voice as he glanced towards her.

"Nice," he responded, before gesturing towards the two other cadets and holding up his shot glass. "Winner, sit. Losers, drink,"

The shot glasses clinked together, but before any of them could drink, one of the other cadets glanced up.

"Hold on," she said. "Metesky _wasn't_ a serial killer. None of his bombs ever killed anyone,"

"What, you think _all_ we do is serial killers?" Morgan asked, before twirling his index finger in a circle around his temple. "Trust me, we cover the _whole_ spectrum of psychos. We profiled the DC snipers, the Unabomber. We do terrorists, arsonists--"

"Supervisory Agents trying to get their trainees drunk," 

At this point, Cassie figured she had stood on the sidelines long enough, so she spoke up, making Derek turn around, a grin growing on his face as he obviously recognized her voice.

"Ladies," Morgan beckoned Cassie forward, and after rolling her eyes fondly, the dark-haired woman stepped up to join her partner at the table. "May I present, my most lovely partner, Miss Cassidy Quinn?"

All three cadets gave Cassie smiles before one finally spoke up. "You help teach marksmanship at the Academy, right?" she asked, and Cassie gave a small nod.

"When I have free time," she answered. Being one of the most skilled sharpshooters at the Bureau did have its perks, she supposed, but her free time came few and far between.

Derek turned back to face her, the seven-inch height difference between them making it so he had to, quite literally, look down at her. But, the seven inches was reduced to five at the moment, considering Cassie was wearing heels.

"Well," he began. "You obviously have some free time now, Angel. Care to join us?"

Cassie figured she should probably explain the nickname. She would if she knew where it had come from. Six months after they had both joined the unit, Derek had called her ' _Angel_ ' one day, completely out of the blue, and much like Penelope's nickname for her, it had stuck.

But, no one else called Cassie that, only Derek, and frankly, she didn't mind all that much, because it sounded a bit odd when anybody else said it.

"You know," she said finally, tilting her head to the side and causing her dark hair to fall over one shoulder. "I would _love_ to, but..." Cassie trailed off, grabbing her cell phone out of her pocket and showing Morgan the screen.

A run-of-the-mill "we have a case" text lit up the small display, the caller ID simply reading ' **BAU** '.

"Why'd they call you first?" Morgan asked, and Cassie found herself grinning again.

"Because they knew I'd answer my phone," she retorted, and Derek's eyebrows scrunched together in the way they always did when he was confused about whether or not he was being insulted.

For the record, he wasn't. Being insulted, that is.

"Wow," One of the young women suddenly spoke up, sounding vaguely awed as she stared at Cassie's phone. "Behavioral Analysis Unit. Do you two work with Gideon? Were you with him in Boston?"

For a moment, the sudden barrage of questions made Cassie's head spin, but after exchanging a glance with Morgan, the dark-haired woman sighed.

"We were supposed to be,"

☆☆☆

Six months. It had been six months since Adrian Bale's final bomb went off in Boston. The bomb that killed six FBI agents, a hostage, and put Derek and Cassie's boss on medical leave for help in treating his post-traumatic stress from the whole incident.

But, to say that Jason Gideon was a legend would be an understatement. 

A founding member of the BAU, he was one of the _best_ profilers the Bureau had ever seen, able to accurately profile an unsub to what type of _music_ the criminal would listen to, or how exactly they styled their hair. He was _that_ good.

But, whether or not he was ready to return to work full-time, or even _wanted_ to, was an entirely different story, one that Cassie was hopeful they'd accomplish.

As she, Derek, and Aaron Hotchner, a senior agent, and their _other_ boss, neared Gideon's office in the Academy, carrying the case file for the " _Seattle Strangler_ ", their new case, Cassie was able to hear Gideon's voice coming from the office, considering his door was open.

"I'll look over the case file and get some thoughts to you ASAP," Gideon was saying, presumably talking to Dr. Spencer Reid, the team's resident genius.

"You're gonna be with us in Seattle, ASAP," Hotch corrected as he, Morgan, and Cassie finally walked into the office, Hotch with an air of authority surrounding him.

Abruptly noticing they were there, Gideon glanced upward and took off his glasses, walking towards the three newly-arrived agents as Derek handed him a photograph of the " _Seattle Strangler's_ " latest victim.

"Twenty-three-year-old Heather Woodland," Cassie's partner explained solemnly.

"Before she left for lunch, she downloaded an email with a time-delay virus attached," Hotch continued. "The killer's virus wiped her hard drive and left this on the screen,"

Hotch handed another photo to Gideon, this one a picture of Heather's computer monitor, with a window showcased in the center, displaying the text across it.

It was a quote from William Heirens, a serial killer from the 1940s who, after writing a message on one of his victims' bedroom wall in lipstick, earned the wholly unoriginal name, _The Lipstick Killer_.

 _For heaven's sake_ , the quote read. _Catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself_.

From where she was standing just beyond Derek's shoulder, Cassie saw Gideon glance over to a picture that hung on the wall of his office, a black-and-white photograph of the exact crime scene where Heirens had written his message, over sixty years ago now.

"He never keeps his victims for more than seven days," the woman spoke up after a few moments. "Which _means_ that we have fewer than thirty-six hours to find her,"

Maybe it was because Heather Woodland was the exact same age as her younger sister Bridget, but Cassie was getting antsy with this case the longer they spent before making the trip to Washington, and she wanted this over and done with as soon as possible.

"They want you back in the saddle," Derek added. "You ready?"

"Looks like medical leave's over boss," Reid continued, just as Gideon tilted his head.

"You sure they want me?" the older agent asked, and Hotch gave a solid nod.

"The order came from the Director," he said, and Gideon turned around again, once more looking at the Lipstick Killer's message in the photograph.

"Then we better get started,"

☆☆☆

_Joseph Conrad said, "The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."_

The government-issued SUVs parked on the tarmac a ways away from the BAU's personal private jet, but as she walked across the wet asphalt towards the plane, Cassie looked over her shoulder to see Hotch talking to one of his higher-ups, a woman with red hair cut into a bob.

She knew what they were discussing. FBI Brass wanted an "assessment" on Gideon, to see if the senior agent was _really_ fit to be returning to active duty, regardless of whether or not the Director had asked for him by name.

But, considering she was already too far away to hear exactly what it was that Hotch and the other woman were talking about, Cassie climbed the steps into the jet, setting her go-bag on an empty seat before grabbing a case file and flipping through it.

Once they were in the air, Reid began to go over the details of what the five of them knew about the case so far.

"His first victim was twenty-six-year-old Melissa Kirsch," the young genius began. "Stab wounds, strangulation--"

"Okay, wait," Morgan cut in from where he was leaning over the top of Cassie's chair. "Back up. He stabbed her, and _then_ strangled her to finish her off?"

"Other way around," Gideon clarified, before turning to look at Reid. "Why do you think he started using the belt with the second murder?"

"Strangulation with a person's bare hands is a lot harder than you may think," Cassie said, glancing up from the case file she was studying, and blatantly ignoring the semi-confused look that Morgan sent her way. "The unsub tried, probably found that it took too long..."

"So he stabbed her instead," Derek continued Cassie's thought, prompting the woman to give a small nod.

"And realized it would be hours cleaning up the blood," Hotch added, and Morgan gestured with one hand.

"So, next time our boy's got a method," he began, glancing towards Gideon. "The belt,"

"He's learning," Gideon said simply. "Perfecting his scenario. Becoming a better killer,"

 _Great_ , Cassie thought as she glanced back down at her case file. She hated it when the killers got smart. It meant they were harder to catch.

**F.B.I. NORTHWEST FIELD OFFICE  
Seattle, Washington**

By the time they landed in Washington, it was morning, and like every stereotypical depiction of Seattle, the sky above Cassie's head was gray and dreary, the clouds heavy with unshed rain. These were some of the days she missed O'ahu's sunshine. At least there the temperatures were consistent.

As soon as the five of them made it through the entrance security, Gideon became a man on a dead-set mission, walking purposefully across the lobby deeper into the building.

From where she was walking in between Morgan and Reid, Cassie saw the exact moment that Derek began to voice his thoughts, lightly grabbing her upper arm to stop her from moving any further.

When he noticed that Derek and Cassie weren't following him, Reid stopped as well, spinning around on his foot with about as much grace as an acrobat with a broken ankle.

"He never stands with his back to a window," Morgan began. "When I was between him and a doorway, he asked me to move,"

"That's hyper-vigilance," Reid explained calmly. "It's not uncommon in post-traumatic stress disorder,"

"Just how much _disorder_ are we talking about?" Morgan asked, just as Hotch walked up behind the three gathered agents.

"Morgan," the senior agent said simply. "It's been six months. Everything's okay,"

Cassie was almost 100% sure that wasn't how dealing with PTSD worked, but Hotch and Reid walked away before she could say anything about it, leaving her and Morgan standing in the lobby.

"Look, Derek," Cassie began after a moment, being one of the only people who called him by his first name when they were at work, only using his surname when she was pissed off. "I'm as wary about Gideon being back as you are, but he _is_ one of the best. Like it or not, we need him on this,"

One of Cassie's closest friends from back home now worked as a Navy S.E.A.L., and combat--especially the kind S.E.A.L.s went through--always brought back some trauma, regardless.

She'd dealt with this stuff before, and knew how to help. Hopefully, anyway. But, PTSD also affected everyone differently, so there was no way of knowing just how much Gideon _was_ affected by the events in Boston.

In response, Morgan just frowned and scrunched his eyebrows together, but didn't say anything, only following Cassie into the room where all of the evidence so far had been set up, the two of them entering just as Hotch began making introductions.

"This is Special Agent Gideon," Hotch was saying as Derek and Cassie walked in. "Special Agent Morgan, our expert on obsessional crimes, Special Agent Quinn, our interrogations expert and child advocate, Special Agent Reid--"

" _Dr. Reid_ ," Gideon abruptly cut Hotch off, causing the other man to backtrack.

"Dr. Reid," he corrected himself. "Our expert on...well, _everything_. And after two years of busting my butt in this office, I hope you remember me,"

There was a smattering of chuckles throughout the gathered Seattle agents, but Cassie wasn't paying attention to them, she had already turned to the boards with the crime scene photos, various maps, and whatnot from the other murders.

"He's willing to travel with the body," Gideon said slowly as he studied one particular board.

"Then he drives a vehicle capable of concealing one," Hotch added, just as Reid turned around again.

"1 in 7.4 drivers in Seattle owns an SUV," the statistic genius spouted off the fact without batting an eye, causing Cassie to quirk an eyebrow.

"An Explorer with tinted windows?" Morgan asked, but Cassie shook her head.

"No, Explorers rate higher with women," she explained.

"Well, how do we know it's _his_ car?" Derek countered. "Ted Bundy drove a VW Bug,"

"What about a Jeep Cherokee?" Hotch asked, and Reid glanced over his shoulder at the older agent.

"Jeeps are more masculine," the young genius added before Gideon turned around again.

"And we all know how an unsub feels asserting his masculinity," he said, addressing all of the gathered agents as Cassie glanced up from the board she had been studying at the moment.

"When did the Bureau become involved in the case exactly?" she asked, and one of the Seattle agents turned to look at her.

"After the fourth body," he answered. "He dumped _that_ one out of state,"

"Purposefully, I'll bet," Cassie mused, half to herself, and Reid looked up as if he'd just had an epiphany.

"If that's true," the brunet began. "Knowledge of law enforcement _does_ suggest a criminal record,"

"Or that he watches television," Derek piped up, before turning to the Seattle agent who had answered Cassie's question a few moments earlier. "May I?" The other man handed Morgan a case file, and Cassie's partner began to flip through it as another agent turned towards Reid and Gideon.

"So," he began. "Wanna see our suspect list?"

"No," Hotch answered simply. "We won't look at a suspect list until after we come up with a profile. It keeps our perspective unbiased,"

"When do we sit down with your task force?" Gideon asked.

"Four o'clock," was the simple answer, and that was what made Cassie glance up again, right eyebrow shooting up her forehead in an expression of pure disbelief.

"An accurate profile by four o'clock today?" Morgan apparently shared the woman's sentiment, because his question was spoke with equal parts disbelief and a bit of contempt.

"That's not a problem," Gideon said simply, walking past Hotch, Derek, and Cassie to the far side of the room, making Cassidy narrow her eyes.

She knew their team was good, but they weren't _that_ good, were they?

"Agent Gideon?" Hotch asked. "Where would you like to start?"

Gideon glanced over his shoulder at the other agents once, before pointing his index finger at a photograph hanging on one of the case boards.

"At the sight of the last murder,"

☆☆☆

The site where Anne Cushing's body was found was beneath a concrete bridge, the ground around Cassie's shoes littered (no pun intended) with trash and other gross unmentionables.

She, Morgan and Gideon, along with an officer from the Seattle Police Department were the ones who had made the short trip to the crime scene, while Hotch and Reid had gone to talk to Heather Woodland's brother.

"So, that's Gideon?" the officer said, sounding a bit awed. " _The_ Gideon? The one who caught that guy--Adrian Bale--in Boston?"

To Cassie, it always seemed that, whenever someone outside the Bureau, or even outside the BAU itself, was faced with potentially meeting Gideon, all that particular person seemed to care about was that Gideon had stopped Adrian Bale. 

Which was good, don't get her wrong about that, it meant one more bad guy was off the streets. But, what most people glossed over in their awe-induced haze was the fact that _seven_ people had _died_ before the bomber was apprehended, or that, for the last half-year, Gideon hadn't even been on active duty. 

Not that most people knew about the latter, of course.

" _Yep_ ," she said finally, sarcasm heavily evident in her voice. "That's him,"

"But," Morgan added, giving the police officer a look. "Catching him cost us, six agents,"

The officer's face turned downcast, and frankly, Cassie didn't blame him. Those six agents, and the single hostage who had died, they had all had families, families who lost loved ones as soon as Bale had set off that final bomb.

After a few minutes of watching Gideon study the scene where Anne's body had been discovered, Derek and Cassie walked over to join their boss, Morgan beginning to give details as soon as the two walked up.

"Twenty-two-year-old Anne Cushing was found right here," he said, gesturing to the ground around the three of them. "Nails clipped just like the others. He _wants_ them to fight back,"

"But, not enough to hurt him," Gideon added, glancing down at the photograph of Anne's body that Cassie had handed to him. "And he left the belt around her neck. He's probably in his early twenties,"

As Cassie stared down at the photo once Gideon had handed it back, with Derek looking over her shoulder, Morgan turned his head up again.

"What's your reasoning?" he asked, and Gideon glanced around for a moment before answering.

"Youthful arrogance," he answered finally, and from beside her, Cassie heard Morgan let out a heavy sigh.

"He clothed the body before dumping it," her partner continued, and Gideon turned around to walk back over to him and Cassie.

"That's a sign of remorse," Gideon said, and Cassie couldn't stop herself from letting out a small scoff.

"That's not consistent," she began. "I mean, Gideon, look where we are. I'd say his opinion on women is pretty clear,"

"They're disposable," the older agent said calmly, and Cassie nodded.

"Why would the unsub show remorse by taking the time to dress her," the dark-haired woman began. "But, then dump her body here? It doesn't make any sense,"

To that, it seemed, at least for the time being, Gideon, or Morgan for that matter didn't have an answer.

☆☆☆

Hotch and Reid, though, seemed to have had a bit more luck. While the two had been interviewing Heather's brother, they had found out that their missing young woman had been in the market for a _Datsun Z_ , a type of car, seeing as how Reid had found a catalog containing the vehicle in Heather's house.

Apparently, for his ruse, the unsub had offered Heather a test drive, and then just...drove away, with her inside.

Cassie had to admit, it was a pretty ingenious idea. In a sick and twisted sort of way, of course. But, that didn't stop the fact that their team was running out of time in order to create an accurate profile.

So, now the five of them were back in the Seattle field office, going over what they knew and trying to figure out _how_ exactly they were going to be able to give the _task_ force agents an accurate enough profile to catch the Seattle Strangler by four o'clock this afternoon.

"Okay, then how about the fact that on one hand, we have paranoid psychosis?" Morgan asked as he paced in front of the conference room door, tossing a baseball up into the air and catching it at regular intervals. "But the autopsy reports say what?"

Reid, from where he had been spinning around in an office chair, suddenly stopped and began to spout off what he knew.

"Adhesive residue shows he put layer after layer of duct tape over his victims' eyes," the young genius said, and Cassie shuddered subconsciously. 

She didn't even _want_ to imagine what that felt like.

"We know he wants to kill them," Morgan continued after a moment. "But he still covers their eyes--"

"He doesn't want them looking at him," Cassie spoke up, glancing upward, and Derek began to use wilder hand gestures to emphasize his point.

"But, then he takes the body and dumps it right out in the _open_ ," Cassie's partner continued. "Murder weapon nearby,"

"That isn't the M.O. of a paranoid convinced he's being watched or surveilled," Reid added, and Cassie pursed her lips as Derek began to rant again.

"Paranoid psychosis," he thought out loud. "But behavior that's _not_ paranoid,"

"Maybe he's schizophrenic?" Cassie asked, glancing up again as she doodled random symbols on a notepad with her pen. The mundane task always seemed to help her think.

At this point, she was almost completely sure that the four of them, minus Gideon, who seemed to be studying a map on the far side of the room, were just grasping at straws, but it was better than nothing.

"Maybe we just don't have enough for a complete profile," Derek snapped at her, and Cassie blew a frustrated breath out from between her teeth, sitting back in her chair and moving some hair away from where it had been hanging in front of her eyes.

"Well, _excuse me_ for trying to contribute something _viable_ to the discussion," she retorted sharply, but before an argument could ensue between the two of them, Hotch interrupted.

"We have enough to narrow down our list of suspects," the older man said, looking at Morgan, but it seemed like Derek just wouldn't be swayed.

"You know," he began. "We're looking at less than twelve hours to find her?"

"We don't know exactly what--" Again, Morgan cut Hotch off before the other agent could finish.

"Hotch, we don't _know_ anything!"

"Alright, enough," Gideon's sharp voice made Cassie look up from her doodles, in time to see him turn away from the map he had been studying for the past five minutes. When Hotch, Reid, and Morgan also glanced over to see what it was that Gideon wanted, the agent continued. "Tell them we're ready,"

"We're _ready_?" Derek echoed, sounding completely and utterly confounded as Gideon walked back to the entrance of the room and straight out the door. As soon as he was gone, Morgan turned towards Reid and Cassie. "Cassie, Reid, you two good with this?"

"What choice do we have?" Cassie answered her friend's question with a question, which almost always could be classified as deflection, but at the moment she wasn't sure what else she could do. 

They were running out of time to find Heather Woodland alive, and as wary as she was with Gideon running things again, he _was_ still Cassidy's boss, and she had to trust his judgment, however, clouded it might be.

"We got a woman who's only got a few hours left to live, an _incomplete_ profile, and a unit chief on the verge of a nervous breakdown!" As Morgan finished his ' _observation_ ' the conference room door opened again, and in walked Gideon, grabbing an extra pen off the table.

"They don't call 'em nervous breakdowns anymore," he said simply, before walking out the door as Reid glanced up towards Derek.

"It's called a _major depressive episode_ ," the young doctor said, and Morgan sent him a look.

"I _know_ , Reid," he said simply before the four of them followed in Gideon's wake to another room, where over two dozen task force agents were gathered in and around a u-shaped table, in the center of which stood Gideon in front of a projector screen.

As Gideon began to give the profile about what the BAU believed the Seattle Strangler to be, Cassie leaned against the wall in a corner of the room with Hotch, Morgan, and Reid, watching as the experienced profiler worked his magic, so to speak.

"The unidentified subject is white and in his late twenties," Gideon began, rubbing his hands together. "He's someone you wouldn't notice at first, he's someone who would blend into any crowd. The violent nature of the crimes suggests a previous criminal record. Petty crimes, maybe auto theft,"

Gideon abruptly turned around, spinning slightly to face the other agents in the room.

"We classified him as an organized killer," he continued. "Careful. Psychopathic as opposed to psychotic. He follows the news, has good hygiene, he's _smart_. Because he's smart, the only physical evidence you'll find is what he _wants_ you to find. He's mobile, car in good condition. Our guess? Jeep Cherokee, tinted windows,"

Frankly, Cassidy was impressed at just how _detailed_ Gideon's "incomplete" profile was. Maybe they really _would_ find Heather Woodland before her time was up.

But, Cassie didn't say that out loud, she didn't want to jinx anything.

"The murders have all involved rape," Gideon added onto what he had already revealed about the unsub. "But, rape without penetration is a form of piquerism, and that tells us he is sexually inadequate. Psychiatric evaluations will show a history of paranoia stemming from childhood trauma. The death of a parent or family member. And now," Gideon continued. "He feels persecuted and watched,"

He began to pace again, drawing closer to the corner where Cassie, Morgan, Hotch, and Reid were standing.

"The murders give him a sense of power," Gideon said. "Organized killers have a _fascination_ with law enforcement. They will _inject_ themselves into the investigation. They will even come forward as _witnesses_ to see just how much the police _really_ know. It makes him feel powerful, in control. Which is why I also think, in fact, I _know_ , you have _already_ interviewed him,"

As the task force agents dispersed, Cassie leaned up towards Morgan.

"An incomplete profile, you said?" she whispered so Hotch and Reid wouldn't be able to hear. "I'd say that sounded pretty complete to me,"

☆☆☆

A few hours after giving the Seattle agents the team's profile about their Seattle Strangler, Cassidy found herself dressed in a thick parka, crossing a darkened residential street towards a house sitting on the corner. God, she hoped this plan would work because they were running out of time to find Heather Woodland alive.

Reaching the front steps of the house, Cassie gently hit her knuckles against the door and waited for a few moments. Just as she thought the owner of the house wasn't going to answer, the door opened, revealing an elderly woman staring at her, an oxygen tank at her side. Beyond the woman, a younger woman stood in the hallway, holding a crying baby in her arms.

"Hi," Cassie said gently, putting on her best reassuring smile, while also conforming to the facade of a worried young adult. It was an odd combination, to say the least. "I'm sorry to bother you so late, but I'm house-sitting across the street, and when I got back, the door was wide open and the lights weren't working. I feel so stupid asking this, but is there anyone here who might be able to take a look inside with me?"

The old woman blinked at her for a moment, before turning around and shouting up the stairs.

"Richard!" she cried, and despite it, Cassie felt her lip quirk. Not only was she good at _detecting_ lies, but Cassidy Quinn was also a pretty good liar herself when the situation called for it. "Richard, get down here!"

Richard Slessman, Cassie observed as the two of them made their way down the street to the house she was "house-sitting" was practically the definition of a sleazebag.

"Are you sure you locked it?" he asked as they neared the front door, and Cassie gave a small nod.

"Positive," she answered, putting a somewhat worried tone into her voice.

Slessman didn't say anything in response, because at that moment, they reached the front door, and he gently pushed it open, the wood creaking throughout the seemingly empty house.

"Hello?" Slessman called out after a moment, shining a flashlight down the house's darkened hallway, just in case he would spot something.

Slowly, the two of them made their way into the house, Cassie making sure she stayed behind Slessman the entire way. She _was_ supposed to be a frightened woman, after all.

Slessman called out _"hello?"_ again, and this time, the plan was put fully into motion, as several S.W.A.T. agents appeared suddenly from the shadows, guns pointed straight at Slessman as Cassie grabbed both of his wrists and pinned the man to the ground, taking her handcuffs from her pocket and restraining his hands with ease.

"Richard Slessman," she breathed. "FBI. You're under arrest,"

☆☆☆

_Emerson said, "All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle."_

As soon as Slessman was apprehended and somewhat secure, everyone made their way back to his house, and Cassie met up with Gideon and Reid just as the former walked in the front door.

"We can arrest him with probable cause," Reid said. "But we won't be able to hold him, though Slessman's been at the top of the suspect list,"

"That the mother?" Gideon asked, jerking his head, and Cassie turned to see that the older agent was looking into the kitchen, where Slessman's only three living relatives were sitting.

"Grandmother, actually," Cassie corrected softly. "The mother died in a fire when he was thirteen,"

Gideon nodded again. "Probably not the only fire in his childhood," he said simply, before moving into the split dining/living room, where Morgan and Elle Greenaway, the Seattle agent responsible for this whole plan working in the first place, were poring over some files.

"Before his Son of Sam murders," Reid spoke up. "David Berkowitz set a multitude of fires,"

"Exactly how much is a multitude?" Derek asked, abandoning the files on the dining table to walk over and join the others.

"According to his diary," Reid began. "One thousand four hundred and..." Cassie quirked an eyebrow as Spencer trailed off, and it almost seemed like he _didn't_ know the answer.

But, luckily, Elle had him covered.

"Eighty-eight," she added, and for a moment, Reid looked surprised she knew the answer before Gideon turned to look at Elle himself.

"Having Agent Quinn lure him out was your idea?" Gideon asked, glancing at her. "Greenaway?"

"Elle," the Latina corrected him, before shaking her head. "I don't send a S.W.A.T. team into a house with children,"

"Hotch says your background is in sex offender cases," Gideon continued, straight and to the point, if not a little blunt, just like always. "What can you tell us?"

"The last four murders tell us he is an Anger Excitation rapist," Elle began, as Cassie leaned against the corner of the wall, genuinely intrigued to see exactly what the other woman was able to uncover. "He'll keep a victim for a couple of days. He probably records or videotapes them so he can keep reliving the fantasy,"

Elle's assessment was impressive Cassidy decided, as Gideon gave a small nod, silently agreeing with Elle's statements and observations.

"You okay with Hotch sitting in on the interview?" he asked after a moment, and Elle tilted her head.

"I'd like him to lead, actually," she said.

"Fine," Gideon said simply. "But, hold off. Slessman's done time and he knows the process. All you will get now is a demand for a lawyer,"

With that, Gideon turned around, yelling at Hotch, who was upstairs, that the two of them should check out the garage, before walking out the door, leaving Derek, Cassie, and Elle alone downstairs.

Morgan was the first to speak, to Cassie no less, and what he said made the dark-haired woman want to hit him. _Hard_.

"Next time you lure out an unsub," he said quietly, leaning down slightly from where he was standing next to her. "You should show a little leg, Angel,"

As it were, Cassie _did_ hit him, elbowing Derek in the ribs with barely more than a second to think it through. From in front of the two of them, Cassidy also saw Elle looking a little bit overwhelmed.

"You're impossible," Cassie rolled her eyes, bypassing Morgan with barely more than a flip of her hair, and began to make her way up the stairs, glancing over her shoulder once as Derek and Elle began to follow. "You know as well as I do, Derek, that the only time you'll see _any_ leg from me is when I kick your ass,"

"You thinking you might need some brush-up training?" Derek countered, grinning wolfishly as the three of them finally made their way to the second-floor landing. "You know I still teach hand-to-hand at the Academy,"

"Blah, blah, blah," Cassie retorted, waving a hand around, before turning to Elle, ignoring the look Derek sent towards her as soon as Cassie turned away from him. "I don't think I said it earlier," she began. "But, that was a good plan, luring Slessman out. You planning on transferring?"

There had been an open position at the BAU for a while, but Hotch had been holding off on interviewing potential candidates for it until after Gideon had returned from medical leave.

And now that he had, here they were, with a promising choice right in front of them.

"Maybe," Elle answered after a moment, looking suddenly self-conscious, a drastic difference from her confidence earlier, when she had been profiling Slessman downstairs in front of Gideon. "I heard about the opening at BAU. Got any advice?"

"Just trust your instincts," Cassie said simply, smiling at Elle before she hooked a thumb over her shoulder towards Derek. "And don't trust anything he says. Most of it is complete BS anyway,"

"Excuse me?" Morgan let out an indignant scoff, eyebrows scrunching together again, and Cassie let out a laugh.

"Calm yourself, Chicago," she told him. "I'm just kidding,"

With that, the three of them split, with Elle making her way towards one end of the hall, while Cassie and Derek headed down the opposite one, pausing in a doorway of what Cassie _assumed_ was Richard Slessman's bedroom.

But, there was also something... _off_ about it, something she couldn't put her finger on, and apparently, Morgan shared her sentiment.

"Something's not right about this," he said after a moment, dark eyes flicking all over the room, trying to take in every detail in the span of a few seconds. "This is a boy's room. Not a man's,"

"You think our profile's wrong?" Cassie asked, glancing up at him, but Derek only shrugged.

"We got _something_ wrong," he said simply, just as two Seattle agents entered the room, sitting down at Slessman's computer.

Cassie was half-listening to their conversation, and she heard one of the other agents tell his partner that the small slip of paper he was holding had Slessman's computer password written on it. Cassie whipped her head towards the two as they began to type it in, and she tried to stop them, but it was too late.

The screen went to static, signifying that, despite Slessman _saying_ it was the right password, it wasn't. Now the computer monitor had turned black, and that was what made Cassie grind her teeth together.

This guy was smart, and she _hated_ it.

"It's not turning back on," one of the other agents said, and Cassie couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"Yeah," she sighed. "And it _won't._ It was a false password,"

But, maybe there _was_ something she could do. Quickly heading downstairs to one of the SUVs, Cassie grabbed her laptop, and then headed back up to the bedroom, hooking her own computer up to Slessman's and combining the data.

Fingers flying over the keys as Reid, Elle, Hotch, and Gideon entered the room, Cassie's good mood returned for all of three seconds as she managed to hack into Slessman's computer, but it dissipated again as a lock screen for "Deadbolt Defense" appeared on the monitor, along with a box in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen containing the number six.

"What's the number six at the bottom of the screen?" Cassie glanced over her shoulder at Elle as the other woman asked the question, and she sighed.

"Number of password attempts I have before this program wipes Slessman's entire hard drive," Cassie had said it once and she'll undoubtedly say it a million more times before she died, but she absolutely _hated_ it when the bad guys got smart.

"There could be an email," Elle began, causing Cassie to glance at her again. "Or a journal on the computer, something that tells us where Heather is. Do you think you can break in?"

"In six tries?" Cassie asked skeptically. " _Please_. I'm good, but I'm not _that_ good,"

"Try again," Gideon cut in, making Elle, Cassie, and Derek all turn to look at him and Reid. "Fail again. Fail better,"

Cassie just blinked. She knew the words were a quote from... _someone_ , she just didn't know who. But, leave it to Spencer Reid once again to instantly know the original speaker of said quote.

"Samuel Beckett," he said simply, and Cassie and Derek glanced at each other before Morgan turned back to Gideon.

"Try not," Cassie's partner began. "Do, or do not,"

Cassie saw Gideon's eyes narrow, he obviously didn't know the speaker of _that_ quote, a fact that Cassidy actually found hilarious. But, when the older man turned to Reid, Spencer had the answer on the tip of his tongue already.

"Yoda,"

With that, Cassie turned back to her laptop to try and see if she couldfigure out what Richard Slessman might have used _as_ his password before trying to deplete the six tries she had left.

But, no more than a minute had passed before Gideon spoke again.

"I want to talk to him," he said. "Cassidy,"

Cassie glanced over her shoulder as Gideon said her name, but he had already walked out of the room. Exchanging another glance with Derek, who just shrugged, Cassie followed, but not before looking over at both Morgan and Elle.

"Don't touch anything," she told them, before following the same path Gideon had taken, a path that ended with both of them in the house's kitchen, sitting at a small table across from an utterly nonchalant Richard Slessman.

"You read my paper," Gideon said, sitting down in a chair and tossing a book onto the table between him and Slessman. "Learn anything?"

For a few moments, Slessman didn't speak, but when he did, he reminded Cassie why she always hated interrogating suspects who thought they had nothing to lose. He gave them the runaround.

"Heirens said that a man living inside of his head was the one who had committed the murders," Slessman began, nodding his head slightly towards Gideon. " _You_ said he was lying, that there'd never been an actual case of multiple personalities,"

Gideon clasped his hands together in front of him and glanced to the side for a moment before turning back to Slessman. "You have an academic... _interest_ in Dissociative Identity Disorder?" he asked finally. "Or are you just planning your defense?"

Somewhat surprisingly, Slessman let out a scoffing laugh, looking away for a second before he turned back to Gideon, still not speaking. Then, Gideon reached in between the pages of the book he had brought downstairs from Slessman's bedroom, retrieving what looked like a newspaper clipping.

When Gideon unfolded it, and Cassie saw the article that it contained, her eyes widened. It was a clipping from the _Boston Sentinel_ , and there, front and center was a black-and-white photo of a stricken-looking Gideon being led out of a building by another agent.

' _Shrapnel Blast Kills Six_ ', the headline read. The paper was dated just over six months ago, around the same time Adrian Bale set off his final bomb.

"You a fan of _Adrian Bale's_ work?" Gideon asked Slessman, his tone turning snappish, and frankly, Cassidy didn't blame him. Slessman stared at the clipping for a few seconds, before shaking his head, causing Cassie to narrow her eyes again.

"No," he answered, sounding almost surprised as if Gideon was supposed to know that. "I'm a fan of yours. You know," Slessman added, leaning forward over the table. "They never give you the _real_ facts about CPR. That outside of a hospital, it's only effective 7% of the time. Your friend had a _93%_ certainty of dying. But, you kept trying. Even after you'd broken his ribs, even after his blood was _all over_ your hands,"

Gideon though wasn't even swayed. At least, he seemed that way, Cassie had no idea was her boss was feeling on the inside. All she did know, was that Heather Woodland was still missing. And it was likely that, to some degree, Richard Slessman knew where she was.

"Why don't you tell us where Heather Woodland is?" Cassie asked, speaking for the first time since she had followed Gideon downstairs.

Slessman glanced at her as if just now realizing that Cassie was there, before leaning back in his chair. For several moments, he didn't speak, and Cassie began to think he wasn't going to.

"Woodland," he said finally, before meeting Cassie's eyes. "Isn't she the girl that went missing a couple of days ago?"

Now that was odd.

Cassie had been a profiler for a few years now, and one of the most important things she had learned was about language, and how the unsubs spoke. And here, at this moment, Cassie knew, she knew in her gut, that Heather Woodland was alive.

Because Richard Slessman had used present-tense when he'd talked about her. He had said _isn't she_ , rather than, _wasn't she_. If Heather was already dead, Slessman most likely would've used wasn't when speaking, because he _knew_ that she was dead. But, due to the fact that he hadn't, that meant that they still had time.

That _Heather_ still had time.

"Get him out of here," Gideon finally told the officer who had been guarding Slessman, before he stood up from the chair and walked out of the room, Cassie on his heels. Hotch was standing outside the kitchen, and Cassie saw Gideon glance at him as they passed by.

There were conflicts in the profile, things about the Seattle Strangler that didn't match up with Slessman's personality. Cassie could only hope that they figured out what they were soon before they ran out of time to find Heather Woodland alive.

☆☆☆

A second unsub. 

Cassie didn't know why it had taken her so long to figure it out, but as soon as Gideon and Hotch had told them before they, along with Elle, headed back to the field office, it became glaringly obvious.

The conflicts in the profile, the signs that showed two different behaviors. It was because there _were_ two different behaviors.

Two different behaviors for two different people.

So, when Gideon, Hotch, Reid, and Elle went back to the field office to see if they could figure out who Slessman was working with, Cassie stayed behind at the house with Derek, still trying to get into Slessman's computer, to see if they could either find out who the other unsub was that way, or where Heather Woodland might be.

But, as good as Cassidy's computer skills were, she knew that she wouldn't be able to hack into Slessman's computer before the defense system locked her out and wiped the entire drive without figuring out the password.

So, she called someone who might.

" _You've reached Penelope Garcia in the FBI's office of Supreme Genius,_ "

"Hey, it's Cassie," Cassie greeted her friend with ease, phone pressed between her ear and shoulder as she worked her own laptop. "I need you to use that amazing hacker brain of yours and help me figure out something,"

" _My beautiful surfer sunshine_ ," Penelope began, making Cassie smile, despite the perilous situation. " _Of course. What do you need?_ "

"I got a program here," she began, glancing at the doorway as Derek walked in. "It's called _Deadbolt Defense_. We also have a girl with only a few hours left to live if we don't get in. What do you know about it?"

" _I know that you've got a problem_ ," Garcia said, causing Cassie to scrunch her eyebrows. " _You know as well as I do that_ _Deadbolt's the number one password crack-resistant software out there. You're going to have to get inside this guy's head to get the password,_ "

And _that_ was what Cassie had been afraid of. Slessman had been taken to the field office with Hotch, Gideon, and Elle, where he could be watched better, and thus was currently _not_ at the house.

"I thought you worked at the Office of Supreme Genius?" Cassie sighed, and she could hear Penelope laugh over the other end of the line.

" _Well, beautiful,_ " Garcia added after a moment. " _You've now been rerouted to the Office of Too Fricken' Bad_ ,"

Cassie sighed heavily again and ran a single hand through her hair before she spoke. "Thanks anyway, Penny," the dark-haired woman said finally, before hanging up.

"Garcia couldn't help?" Cassie turned around at Derek's question, to find her partner staring at her with a pensive expression on his face.

"Nope," she answered simply, subconsciously clenching her jaw. "And now it's up to us to figure out what Slessman's password could possibly be, otherwise his partner, whoever they are, is going to end up killing Heather, if they haven't done it already since he was arrested,"

"Well," Morgan said after a moment of thought. "Then I guess we'll just have to use what we can find here as a way to figure out what Slessman's password is. It can't be that hard,"

"I hate it when you say that," Cassie muttered, lightly brushing past Derek on her way out of the bedroom. "Because it always ends up _being_ that hard,"

First, the two of them made their way to the bathroom, and Cassie opened up Slessman's medicine cabinet, which was situated behind the mirror above the sink.

"Okay," she began slowly as Derek peered over her shoulder, grabbing an orange bottle of pills off the shelf, which Cassie recognized as a common sleeping medication. _Odd_. "My name is Richard Slessman and I have trouble _sleeping_ ,"

Since this part of the investigation, the part where they all tried to get inside the unsub's head to figure out what he's like, was really Derek's area of expertise, Cassie let her partner take the lead, following him back into Slessman's bedroom, where Morgan lay on his back on their suspect's bed, trying to get into Slessman's headspace and see if he could find any clues.

"Okay, what do I do when I'm trying to get to sleep?" Derek mused quietly, eyes closed, as Cassie's eyes landed on the headboard, which had built-in shelves atop it.

An idea suddenly appeared inside her head, and Cassie climbed onto the bed beside Morgan, causing Derek to quirk an eyebrow when he saw what she was doing. Cassidy reached inside one of the shelves, and took out two CD cases, before reaching across Morgan's head and grabbed a small CD player, and dangled the three objects in her partner's face.

"I listen to music," she said, grinning a bit, before setting the CDs on the bed between them and popping the player open, only to frown again. "Empty," Cassie muttered, snapping it closed again before climbing off the bed, turning her head to glance at a magazine rack that was nearby, only this held several more CD cases.

When she turned back towards Derek, Cassie's partner was already smiling, before he stood up off the bed himself and poked his head out into the hallway, where there were still several other Seattle federal agents and cops milling around.

"Guys, little help?" he called out before he and Cassie stood on either side of the CD stand, staring down at the dozens of cases, all with dozens of songs on them.

"We're going to go through every one of these CDs," Cassidy spoke up as two other agents entered the room. "Look for scratches, wear-and-tear, anything that says Slessman might have listened to it more often than the others. Right now! We're running out of time,"

She and Derek each grabbed a few handfuls of CD cases and dropped them on the bed, before staring down at them.

"This is gonna take a while," Cassie muttered.

☆☆☆

_Winston Churchill said, "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you will see."_

It had been a few hours since they had started their search for the CD that might hold the key to breaking into Slessman's computer, and Morgan was currently upstairs in Slessman's sanctuary/attic, while Cassie had stayed downstairs in the bedroom, wondering if she had missed anything.

Obviously, she had, because the two of them hadn't figured out the password yet. 

So, now, Cassidy sat cross-legged on the bed, studying the CD case that was in her hand, before her eyes narrowed, and she whipped her head around, almost falling off the bed in her haste to grab another case that had been dropped on the floor at some point during the search.

She stared at the case for a moment, before shooting up from her spot and running up to the attic, effectively startling her partner when Cassie appeared at the top of the stairs.

Slessman's laptop was sitting open on a small coffee table in the center of the room, while Derek paced the floor behind an armchair.

"I've been thinking about the CDs," she began, voice a bit breathless from running up the steep flight of stairs, but Derek only put his head in his hands and heaved a heavy sigh, sitting down in the chair.

"Angel, come on," he began. "We already tried the CDs. We searched, sifted, and sorted through all the guy's head-banging heavy-metal collection. We gotta find something, or this girl is dead,"

Glancing once towards the coffee, Cassie plucked a paper clip from the surface of it and quickly unbent it.

"But," Cassie spoke up, crouching down to the floor so she was eye-level with the side of Slessman's computer, wiggling the end of the paper clip between the actual computer and the disc player. "I think we may have missed the obvious,"

"What are you doing?" Derek asked her, just as the disc player popped open, revealing a worn-looking _Metallica_ CD still inside. Her partner's eyes widened before Derek took the CD out and stared at it for a moment. "Cassie, what made you think of this?"

"It was the only empty case," Cassidy answered simply, handing the case over, and Morgan studied it, speaking half to himself before Cassidy noticed the list of songs within the track, which were listed on the back of the case, and she tilted her head, reading them.

"Okay," Derek began softly. "I'm an insomniac who listens to _Metallica_ to go to sleep at night. What song could possibly speak to me?"

Cassie met Derek's eyes for a moment before she spoke. 

" _Enter Sandman._ Move," Quickly, but not harshly, Cassidy pushed Morgan out of the way, taking his spot in the armchair and leaning over the keyboard of Slessman's computer, quickly typing in the password.

The good news, they were finally let into Slessman's computer. The bad news...

"Oh my god," Cassie murmured, eyes wide as she stared at the screen. Derek shot to his feet and began to pace again, swiftly taking out his phone as two other agents and a Seattle cop entered the room.

"Gideon," Morgan spoke after a moment. "Heather's alive," There was a brief pause, and Cassie assumed Gideon was saying something as Derek crouched beside her, both of them staring at the computer screen. "Because we're watching her right now,"

The video feed that had popped up on the computer screen once Cassie had broken in was black-and-white and shot off some sort of web camera. It showed a bound-and-gagged Heather Woodland, duct tape secured over her eyes, trapped in a large cage, though it was a cube shape, and not big enough for the young woman to stand up in. Not that she'd be able to anyway, with the chains around her wrists and ankles restricting her from moving very far.

His call with Gideon now over, Morgan hung up, and he and Cassie switched places again, with Derek crossing his arms over the table to study the camera feed, while Cassie stood behind him, running her teeth along her bottom lip. Something kept bothering her, and it wasn't the fact that Heather was about to be killed.

It was something else. Something about the feed...

Finally, Cassidy spun around, walking back towards Morgan and placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Derek," she began. "Can you pull up the last twelve images side-by-side? I need to check something," A few seconds later, rows of grayscale images appeared above the current feed, and Derek quirked an eyebrow.

"What am I looking for?" he asked, and Cassie pointed a finger towards one of the images.

"Look," she said quietly. "You see that lightbulb?" The light was situated above the cage that Heather was trapped in, a simple cone-shaped lamp. 

"Yeah..." Derek answered slowly, tilting his head. "What about it?"

"It's shifting positions," Cassie said, finally realizing what had been bugging her. "Like it's swaying, or the Earth is tilting somehow,"

"Like at the ocean," Morgan added quietly, and he and Cassie both snapped their heads to look at each other at the same time as the same idea appeared in their heads.

Heather Woodland was on a boat.

" _A boat_?" Hotch echoed once Cassidy had called him to say what she and Derek had found.

"It has to be at a pier or dock," the dark-haired woman answered. "I mean, where else are you going to find a large body of water in Seattle? Unless you're talking about a massive puddle, I mean. Plus, there's no way he'd be able to transmit the webcam footage from the middle of the ocean,"

" _You two sure about this_?" Hotch asked, and Cassie found herself sighing.

"It's the best we have, Hotch," she answered finally. "You're going to need to be the one who gets an exact location,"

" _What is it Morgan's always asking you when you work with Garcia?_ " Hotch questioned, and Cassie found herself smiling, glancing over at where Derek was talking to the Seattle agents before turning back around.

"To work a little magic," she answered. "Good luck, Hotch," Cassidy turned around when Morgan called her name and saw him leaning over the computer again, eyes narrowed, worry splashing across his face.

When she joined him at the table, Cassie's throat ran dry as she looked at the feed coming in from the webcam, which still showcased Heather Woodland in the cage, only this time, someone was in there with her.

And it _wasn't_ Gideon or Elle, who were currently chasing Slessman's partner, Timothy Vogel, a guard at the prison where Slessman was incarcerated, hoping to get to him in time before he killed Heather.

Now, they were _really_ running out of time.

"Cassie, he's _inside_ ," Derek exclaimed, and Cassie took out her phone again, this time calling Elle to warn her and Gideon about the rapidly shrunken time frame.

"Listen," Cassie began as soon as the Latina picked up her phone. "You and Gideon need to _wait for backup_ ,"

" _If we wait the girl is dead,_ " Elle answered simply, and Cassie gritted her teeth.

"And if we had waited in Boston--" Elle cut the other woman off before she could finish.

" _I can't_ ," Elle said. " _You told me to trust my instincts_ ,"

"This isn't what I meant," Cassie shot back. "I didn't want you to go off and get yourself _killed_ ," But, Elle just hung up, and Cassie was left holding her phone in her hand, more than a little bit pissed off.

"She's a lot like you," Cassie glanced up to find Derek staring at her, a twinkle in his dark eyes, despite the situation. "Stubborn, can't really take no for an answer..."

"Shut up," 

☆☆☆

Above all odds, Gideon and Elle managed to save Heather Woodland's life before Tim Vogel killed her. Vogel was dead now, shot several times by Elle after he had pointed the gun at Gideon, catching the senior agent once in the arm.

Luckily, it was only a graze, otherwise, the two agents were remarkably unharmed. But, from where she stood in the shipyard with Derek and Hotch, Cassie didn't think that Heather's psychological scars would ever heal.

"So, what kind of report do they want on him?" Morgan's voice brought Cassie's attention away from where the EMTs were looking over Heather, and she turned to see her partner fixing Hotch with an expectant look, the ' _they'_ in this scenario being Senior Management.

"I suppose whether he's fit to be a field agent," Hotch finally said after several seconds to think it over. "You know," the older man added after another moment. "Haley and I were looking over a baby names book. Guess what _Gideon_ means in Hebrew,"

"Mighty warrior," Reid answered simply as he passed the three of them. "Appropriate," As Reid walked away, Cassie let out a small laugh, before she turned to Hotch, shifting her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

"What are you going to tell them?" she asked softly, and Hotch glanced at her.

"What would you say?" he asked, and Cassie thought about it for a moment before turning back to Hotch and Morgan.

"Gideon saved Heather's life," she answered simply, glancing once towards the ambulance that had begun to drive away, Heather securely inside. "That's good enough for me,"

☆☆☆

_Nietzsche once said, "When you look long into the abyss, the abyss looks into you."_


	2. Compulsion

**F.B.I. Behavioral Analysis Unit  
** **QUANTICO, VIRGINIA**

From where she had been walking on the small walkway around the edge of the bullpen in the BAU, in front of Hotch and Gideon's offices, Cassie slowed as she neared the latter's door. A few days ago, Gideon had come face-to-face with the Footpath Killer, the same serial killer whose case Gideon had been both consulting on and teaching about at the Academy when he was on medical leave.

How he had gotten away, Cassidy had no sane clue. But, to say she was impressed would be an understatement.

"These are things that we're trained to look for," Gideon was saying as Cassie paused outside his door, and she saw the older agent explaining what had happened to a few Academy trainees.

"So, anyone else would've just seen a guy who stutters," the male trainee began. "But, you saw the Footpath Killer,"

"Right," Gideon agreed solemnly, nodding his head, before lifting his hands. "But, sometimes, these guys are still found by _just_ dumb luck. Berkowitz was caught because of a parking ticket,"

"Except the cop who found out about him wasn't staring down the front barrel of a _shotgun_ ," Cassie cut in from her spot at the door, making Gideon and all three trainees turn and look at her. "You know, like you were,"

"This is true," Gideon nodded, before giving a half-smile to the trainees gathered around him. "And this is also a good time to stop,"

The trainees thanked Gideon, gathered their supplies, and left the agent's office, Cassie waiting until all of them had gone before she walked deeper inside the office, sitting down in one of the armchairs across from Gideon and studying the older man for a few seconds before she finally spoke.

"I'm curious," she began. "The Footpath Killer. Why'd he stutter?"

"You've been a part of the Behavioral Analysis team for three years now, Cassidy," Gideon said simply, his dark eyes shining. "You tell me,"

With that, Gideon stood up from his chair and walked out of his office, leaving Cassie sitting there, pondering his words.

Most stutters were caused by a stroke or traumatic brain injury, which rewrites the neurological impulses in the frontal lobe, thus causing the stutter. But, stutters could _also_ be caused by emotional distress, like if you were a serial killer and had just unknowingly kidnapped an FBI agent.

Still thinking hard on the reasons why, Cassie left Gideon's office, heading out into the bullpen. Her desk was just on the other side of the guardrail, and the brunette quickly walked down the three steps to the main floor.

Sitting down in her chair, Cassie began to idly spin around, subconsciously noticing that Reid, who sat across from her, seemed to be playing chess with himself, while Derek looked over an evidence bag across the aisle from Cassie's desk.

Gideon, who was down on the floor as well, quickly moved a knight piece and cornered Reid's king. "Check," he said simply, making the younger genius look up at him. "Checkmate in three moves,"

As Gideon walked away, Spencer stared at his chessboard in shock, and Morgan tossed down the bag he had been looking at, eyes flicking over to the woman beside him, who wasn't really paying attention, and was instead scribbling rapidly on a notepad, murmuring to herself under her breath. At this point, Derek had stopped being surprised by Cassie's quirks.

"You know," he began after a moment, looking back towards Reid. "You'll start beating him when you start learning,"

"Learning what?" Reid echoed, and Morgan turned back to his computer, answering Spencer's question over his shoulder.

"To think _outside_ the box," he specified, just as Cassie's head snapped up, making Derek turn around.

"Okay," she began as Elle, who _had_ , in fact, ended up transferring to the team after the Seattle Strangler case, entered their small cluster of desks. "I have a question for all of you,"

"Shoot, Angel," Morgan said, and Cassie stood up, pacing the small aisle, notepad in hand, and from where he was sitting, Derek was able to see that is was covered in his partner's handwriting, which most of the time was fairly neat, but when she was _really_ thinking about something, it turned into unintelligible chicken-scratch.

"The Footpath Killer," Cassie continued, shoving her notepad into Derek's hands. "Why do you think he stuttered?"

"Come on, Cassidy," Derek answered, glancing sparingly down at the notebook in his hands, but looked back up again when he could barely decipher what Cassie had written down. "We've all asked Gideon about it, and he won't say. He wants us to figure it out,"

"Yeah, I _know_ ," Cassie retorted, taking her notebook back and sitting down again. "That's the problem. I _know_ the causes of stutters are usually from emotional distress or a brain injury--"

"Likely to the frontal lobe," Reid piped up, making them all look at him. "That's the part of your brain that helps with word processing and vocal speech,"

"Exactly," Cassie added. "But, Gideon's likely looking for a _specific_ answer, such as if the Footpath Killer _did_ suffer a brain injury either as an infant or in childhood, he wants to know when it was, how it was caused, and why it happened,"

"Sounds fun," Elle added as she stood beside the vacant desk beside Reid. "I love a good challenge,"

"Good," a new voice added, just a young blonde woman dressed in blue neared the four profilers, carrying a pile of files in her arms. "Because these go to you," As Elle stared at the files, the woman extended a hand. "Special Agent Jennifer Jareau. JJ, if you like,"

JJ was, along with Reid and Garcia, one of the newer members of the team. She was nice enough, but despite being relatively close in age, Cassie didn't hang out with her outside of work all that much.

"Elle--" the newest agent began to introduce herself, but JJ cut her off before she could finish.

"Greenaway," JJ almost seemed a bit awed. "Highest number of solved cases in Seattle three years running. Specialty in sex offender cases,"

As JJ finished, Elle glanced around, looking a bit freaked out about how this random woman who just walked up to her knew so much, a fact that Cassie actually found a bit funny, and she hid her grin behind a file.

"Not bad," Elle said finally, and JJ turned away and began to walk out of the main bullpen.

"Well," the blonde began. "I'm the Unit Liaison. _My_ specialty is untangling bureaucratic knots. You'll probably be talking to me a lot. My door's always open, mostly because I'm never in my office, so just...call me on my cell, okay? We'll talk,"

With that, JJ walked towards Hotch's office, which was right beside Gideon's, just as the black-haired agent walked out, and considering the two of them were standing eight inches to the left of Cassie's head, the brunette was able to hear what the two of them were saying.

"Did you watch it?" JJ was asking Hotch and Cassie glanced up at the duo just as Hotch started to walk purposefully across the walkway, turning his head so he faced the bullpen.

"BAU team, would you meet me in the conference room, please?" Hotch asked. "I need to show you something,"

Scrunching her eyebrows, Cassie glanced towards Morgan, who only shrugged, before the two of them, plus Reid and Elle, walked up the short flight of stairs into the nearby conference room, where they normally briefed all of their new cases, and it was also where Hotch and Gideon were already waiting for them, a video queued up on the TV.

"This is from the Phoenix office," Hotch began. "Bradshaw College in Tempe. Six fires in seven months,"

"Who recorded it?" Gideon asked, glancing at the case file he held in front of him, as Cassie glanced down as well.

It was obvious they were already dealing with an arsonist, but most arsonists usually set more fires in a shorter period of time. It was their compulsion, they _needed_ to set the fires.

"A student with a digital camcorder," JJ answered, and Cassie glanced over at the blonde, who sat next to her, with Derek on Cassie's other side. "He was watching a fire in the building across from their dorm. The other person you'll see is his roommate. Twenty-year-old Matthew Rowland,"

Then, JJ grabbed the remote, and hit ' _play_ '. The video started playing, and from what Cassie could see of the feed, it showcased a window, flames sprouting out of it. A few seconds later, a voice came from off-camera, and Cassidy assumed it was the college student who had originally sent in the video.

" _This is crazy_ ," the kid said. " _Hey, Matt! Get over here, you have to see this! The building's on fire!_ " Then, the face of a young man popped into the frame, and Gideon spoke up.

"Is that the kid?" he asked, and when Cassie glanced over, Hotch nodded.

"Yeah," the unit chief answered simply before the tone of the video changed. 

The video showed Matthew and his roommate investigating the arrival of some sort of liquid underneath their door. Cassie's eyes widened as Rowland said " _it smells like gas_ '' just before flames erupted around him, making the college student scream.

His roommate dropped the camera and ran to help put out the flames by repeatedly hitting Rowland with a pillow, but Cassidy had a feeling that it was already too late. 

Getting burned alive...that was a very, _very_ painful way to die.

☆☆☆

_Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."_

When she and the others were on the jet, flying towards Arizona, Cassie brought out her laptop, and opened up the calendar, hoping to create a timeline of all the recent fires up until this point.

"There are two common stressors for a serial arsonist," Reid suddenly piped up from where he was setting up a chessboard on the other side of the plane, and it made Cassidy glance over her shoulder at him.

"Loss of job," Elle added, counting off her fingers. "Or loss of love,"

"When was the first fire set?" Cassie asked, and Hotch glanced up at her.

"Uh, March," he answered after a moment. "The next one in May. And the third wasn't until September, where two weeks later there were three in one night,"

"Talk about a rapid escalation," Cassie muttered, half to herself. Scratch what she had said earlier about how even though the six fires had been set over a span of seven months, it obviously didn't mean that this arsonist spread them out _equally_.

Setting three fires in one night? That definitely sounded like an arsonist. One that couldn't get enough off the high that setting the fires in the first place gave him, so much so that the arsonist needed to start killing people for it.

"He's speeding up," Gideon added, voicing Cassie's own thoughts as the brunette input the dates of the fires into the calendar. "Fires are closer together,"

"Hey, Reid," Morgan piped up from where he was sitting across from Cassie, looking down the plane at the young genius. "You got a statistic on arsonists?"

"82% are white males between the ages of seventeen and twenty-seven," he answered simply. "Female arsonists are far less likely, their motive typically being revenge,"

Cassie glanced up from her laptop as Derek turned to look at her. "Looks like our boy's a student," he said, but before Cassie could respond, Gideon flicked his eyes across the aisle to look at both of them.

"Don't be so sure," the older agent said simply. "You rely too much on precedent, you never allow for the unexpected,"

Cassie ran her lip over her teeth before looking towards Gideon, face thoughtful as she voiced her thoughts again.

"If he's escalated from setting one fire," she began, her fingers slowing from where they had been flying across her keyboard. "To _three_ in less than two weeks, that is a _very_ rapid escalation,"

"I was thinking the same thing," Hotch said, making Cassie turn around in her chair. "He went from damaging a building to murder,"

"He has power over life and death," Gideon added, shaking his head slowly, before turning back towards Cassie and Morgan. "Who we talking to first?"

"Dean of Students," Hotch answered after a moment. "Ellen Turner,"

Cassie reached around her computer and grabbed a guidebook to Bradshaw College that Garcia had given her before they'd taken off from Quantico. On the outside, the university looked remarkably normal, and from the photographs, you'd never even guess that the campus was currently being terrorized by someone who liked to set things on fire.

Another example of not judging a book by its cover, Cassie decided. Once you open the book, you never know what you're going to find.

☆☆☆

**Bradshaw College  
TEMPE, ARIZONA**

The ride from the airport to the Bradshaw campus occurred without incident, and within an hour after landing in Tempe, the team was stopping in front of the building where they were supposed to meet Dean Turner.

"No badges," Gideon said firmly as they all stepped out of the SUV, Cassie pulling her sunglasses over her eyes as she gazed around at all the students milling around. 

Any one of them could be the arsonist, and they would never guess. 

Gideon was already halfway down the stairs, but he glanced over his shoulder after a few seconds. "I don't want to satisfy the unsub's need for attention by letting him know he got the FBI here. Try not to look official,"

As she, Morgan, Elle, Reid, and Hotch neared the top of the stairs, Cassie paused and glanced around at her colleagues. Spencer and Elle were really the only ones who didn't seem as if they worked for a government agency, but Derek and Hotch looked as if they had just stepped out of a James Bond movie.

Gideon, it seemed, noticed the same thing.

"Try to look _less_ official," he added, before opening the door to the building and walking through. 

Cassie sighed, before unbuttoning her blazer and slinging the black jacket over her arm, leaving her in a red sleeveless blouse and black skinny jeans. She also unclipped her hair, letting the dark brown waves tumble down her shoulders.

Frankly, Cassidy was glad to get the blazer off. Sure, she had grown up with temperatures hovering in the high 90s almost daily, but despite what Derek said he thought, Cassie was _not_ part of the sun.

She may have hated D.C. winters, but that was likely just her own personal bias. That had nothing to do with whether or not she was part star.

A few minutes after the other agents made themselves "look less official", they caught up with Gideon, who was talking with an African-American woman that Cassie assumed was Ellen Turner.

Introductions were made, before the dean led them all across the campus, closer to the dorms where Matthew Rowland had been killed.

"Obviously," Ellen began, as a man with Asian features joined them. "I'd rather be meeting you under different circumstances. This is Fire Inspector Zhang,"

"This morning," Zhang started. "The Chemistry department reported _several_ bottles of highly flammable chemicals missing,"

"I'm prepared to evacuate this campus," Ellen began as they entered another building, but Hotch quickly shot down her suggestion before she could continue.

"That brings with it its own problems," the Unit Chief explained simply, as Gideon glanced over at the dean.

"You might evacuate the arsonist as well," he told her before Cassie spoke up from where she was walking behind Ellen and Hotch.

"Then the case goes unsolved," she began. "When the campus reopens, the fires will just start up again,"

"Wait," Morgan cut in. "Hotch, Gideon, hold on a second," All of them stopped as Derek looked over the file before he turned to Fire Inspector Zhang. "You said the chemicals were missing today?" he asked, and the other man nodded before Morgan turned to Gideon. "It says here that one of the previous fires was set with diesel fuel that disappeared from the groundskeeping facility,"

"How long after it disappeared did the fire start?" Cassie asked, a few moments before Zhang's face fell, and he exchanged a glance with Dean Turner before Ellen turned back to the FBI agents.

"One day,"

That meant that, if the arsonist was going to stay consistent with the current shortened timeline between fires, the next blaze would be as soon as later that day.

When they got to the dorm where Matthew Rowland used to live, Hotch and Reid went to look at the crime scene while Cassie, Derek, Elle, and Gideon went with Ellen and Zhang to look at the devices used to set the most recent fires.

Cassie lifted open the flaps of the small cardboard box, revealing what looked like some sort of charred cell phone or other detonation devices.

"They turned off the water just before the fire," Zhang began as Cassie pulled on a pair of latex gloves and picked up one of the devices, turning it over in her hands. "The last three were set with these. Two devices, simultaneous ignition,"

"There was no device used on Matthew Rowland," Gideon piped up from where he was sitting on a nearby table. "Unsub set that one manually?" Zhang nodded, and Morgan looked at Gideon from where he was standing behind Cassie's shoulder as Reid and Hotch walked up to the others. 

"He wanted to be there to enjoy the kid's death," Derek said, but Hotch shook his head.

"Not necessarily," the Unit Chief began, and Cassie glanced up at him as she set the detonation device back in the box and pulled off her gloves, tossing them in the trash.

"But," she started. "If the target was indeed Matthew Rowland, then why'd the arsonist set the other two fires? It seems a bit counterproductive,"

"Motives for arson are relatively simple," Reid explained. "There's vandalism, crime concealment, political statement, profit..."

"I doubt it was a political statement," Cassie interrupted, before glancing at Dean Turner. "No offense, but this campus doesn't really scream ' _Ivy League_ ',"

"There's also revenge," Hotch cut in, bringing things back on track, and the fire inspector glanced at him, looking a bit confused.

"We interviewed Matthew Rowland's roommate," Zhang began, walking around the other side of the table. "He said Matthew was very well-liked. No reason for revenge,"

"What about vandalism?" Ellen asked, crossing her arms and glancing towards Hotch and Gideon, but Cassie was the one who answered, leaning over the cardboard box.

"No," she answered simply. "These fires are too sophisticated, and if he _is_ trying to make a political statement, he's not exactly being clear about it,"

Gideon pushed his glasses on and grabbed a piece of paper that was lying on the table in front of him.

"There's an underlying strategy in this case," the older agent began. "Matthew, firefighters, injured victims. To the unsub, they're not people, they're..."

"They're objects," Hotch said as if he suddenly realized where Gideon was going with his train of thought, but that didn't seem as if that was what Gideon _exactly_ meant because he shook his head.

"More like, uh..." Gideon trailed off again, when Reid's head suddenly snapped up, eyes wide.

" _Chess pieces_ ," the young genius breathed out, and Gideon snapped his fingers, indicating that Reid was correct as he picked up one of the detonation devices.

"Exactly,"

☆☆☆

Then, everyone dispersed to do their own thing, to try and figure out why exactly the arsonist had done what he'd done, and Derek and Cassie ended up at the dormitory where the fire that Matthew and his roommate had been watching before the former was killed.

Both of them walked up to the third floor, where the fire had been set, but they each investigated on opposite sides of the circular hallway. The dormitory was set up like a column, with all the rooms facing a small inner courtyard.

"I want to set the dormitory on fire," Cassie heard her partner murmur, even though he was twenty feet away. "Where would I start?"

"I'd start in the basement," she answered, leaning against the railing. "Leave the higher floors to act as fuel for the blaze,"

"But, then why did I start on the third?" Derek retorted as he leaned against the railing himself, his face turning pensive for a few moments before his dark eyes widened, and Cassie stared at him for a second.

"What?" she asked, and Morgan snapped his fingers.

"Because it wasn't the _building_ I wanted to set on fire," he explained.

"You think there was a specific target?" Cassie asked, and Morgan shrugged.

"Maybe," he said. "I mean, come on, Angel, you heard what Zhang said. Rowland was well-liked, so there wasn't really a need for someone to take revenge on him by burning him alive,"

"Just because he was well-liked, Chicago," Cassie began. "Doesn't mean that there wasn't _someone_ who didn't like him. Everyone has skeletons in their closet,"

"Even you?" Derek asked, and Cassie blinked as he suddenly rounded the conversation back on her.

"What?" Cassie asked, a bit surprised at the turn their conversation had taken. "What about me?"

"Do _you_ have any deep dark secrets that may want someone to burn you alive?"

"I hope not," Cassie muttered, before turning around and walking back to the stairwell. "Let's just go," she answered, deliberately avoiding Derek's question, an action that her partner didn't miss. "We have to go tell Gideon and Hotch that Rowland might've been a target,"

"You didn't answer my question," Morgan told her as they started down the stairs, and Cassie opened her mouth to say something when suddenly, she heard the sound of fire alarms.

Both her and Morgan's heads snapped to the side, to see a building across the street had smoke billowing out of the windows.

Cassie was suddenly very glad that she had done track and field from junior high to when she graduated college, because she and Derek _bolted_ , sprinting down the rest of the stairs and out of the building within forty-five seconds.

"Move!" Derek shouted as he and Cassie ran onto the sidewalk. "Move, get out of the way!"

As they neared the other building, Morgan pulled ahead, and because she wanted to get over to the burning building before it all fell apart, Cassie pushed herself harder, entering the building and running up the stairs a few steps behind Morgan.

Pushing against the wave of fleeing students, Derek and Cassie eventually made it to the floor where the fire had been set, and the office, where Cassie was able to see flames blazing inside.

And Gideon.

Gideon was there too, using a fire extinguisher to try and put out the fire. Shielding her eyes from the smoke, Cassie peered through the flames and was able to see someone sprawled across the desk inside the office, presumably the college professor whose office this belonged to, and somehow, Cassie knew he was already dead.

"Gideon!" she shouted, coughing a bit. "Gideon, we have to go!"

Morgan wrapped his arms around Gideon's shoulders and started to pull the older agent back, but Gideon continued to struggle against him.

"Wait, Morgan, Cassie!" he cried out as Derek began to drag him away from the fire. "Wait, there's somebody in there!"

Somehow, Morgan and Cassie managed to pull Gideon back from the office enough that they made it to the outside stairwell, and Cassidy was the first one out, sucking in a deep breath as she held the door open for Derek and Gideon.

"Keep moving, Gideon!" Cassie's partner shouted at their boss, as Gideon continued to struggle, trying to get back inside. Cassie understood, truly she did, but they did _not_ need two more bodies on their hands right now, not when one of them would be a seasoned FBI agent.

The three finally reached a landing a few floors down, and Gideon shoved Morgan off, making Derek jerk back as Gideon's arm almost whacked Cassie in the face.

"Get off me!" he snapped, beginning to struggle to get back upstairs. "It was a teacher," Gideon continued, getting right up in Cassie's personal space.

"Let it go!" Derek retorted, pushing Gideon back until he was pressed against the guardrail, and to keep him in place, Morgan braced his forearm against Gideon's clavicle. "He's already dead. _Let it go_ ,"

Cassie let out a series of coughs as Derek stepped back from Gideon, leaving the other agent looking a bit stunned, and Morgan turned to his partner, setting a hand on her arm.

"You okay?" he asked quietly, his voice sounding hoarse as well as his eyes glimmered with concern, and Cassie realized the scratchiness of his voice was likely from smoke inhalation. 

They hadn't been in that building long, but the fire was already burning by the same she and Derek had reached it, and it had taken a while for them to manage to get Gideon out, so she wasn't surprised that she and Morgan had breathed in some smoke.

"I'll be fine," Cassidy answered after a few seconds, feeling her throat burn as she spoke before coughing again. "We need to see if there are any other injuries,"

The three stumbled down the final couple flights of stairs, to see that Hotch, Reid, and Elle were there with both the police and some paramedics. Elle was taking pictures with her small handheld camera, and Cassie figured she was trying to see if the arsonist was watching the aftermath of his work.

The unsub had struck again, and they were no closer to finding him than they had been back at the BAU.

This was certainly shaping up to be one hell of a case. And Cassie was going to be _very_ glad when it was over.

☆☆☆

That night, the entire team gathered in the small room they were using as a base of operations while on campus, and Cassie was nursing a bottle of water, trying to soothe her sore throat.

She and Derek had both changed into non-soot-stained clothes and were currently poring over the photos that Elle had taken in the aftermath of the most recent fire. They had been looking through the pictures for _hours_ , and still had nothing.

Cassie was beginning to get a migraine.

"We've been at this all night," Morgan began, sounding a bit snappish. "And we've got nothing. I mean, look at these expressions. We got fear, a touch of horror, even a little bit of panic. Where's the guy getting off?"

"When asked about his motives," Reid began, making Cassie open her eyes and glance at him. "Peter Dinsdale said, ' _I am devoted to fire. Fire is my master.'_ ,"

"Classy," Cassidy muttered sarcastically, idly leafing through different pictures as she tried to look for... _something._

"Okay," Morgan sighed as he stood in front of a bulletin board on the far side of the room. "So, who's our boy's _master_?" Derek suddenly took a lighter out from his pocket, though where he had gotten it, Cassie had no idea, because as far as she knew, Derek Morgan didn't smoke. "Ten thousand-plus students and _one_ has a serious fascination with fire,"

"Fire starting is one-third of the homicidal triad..." Elle began, from where she was standing next to a nearby whiteboard that held the various ideas the team had bounced around over the last several hours. "An early predictor of adult dissociative behavior. If we looked in his childhood, we'd probably find all three,"

"Bedwetting and cruelty to animals are the other two," Cassie added, putting her head in one hand as she shifted in her chair, and Gideon pushed off from where he was leaning against the counter.

"Absent or abusive father," the older agent began. "Trouble with the opposite sex, chronic low self-esteem--M.O. would be dynamic. Evolving," Gideon continued as he turned to face everyone else. "As the fire setting escalates, they thrive on panic--fear. It's just the standard profile of a serial arsonist,"

"Based on hundreds of interviews," Reid piped up quietly, and Cassie flicked her eyes over to him.

"Based on precedent," she added as Morgan sat down again, spinning the lighter between his fingers. "Everything the unsub should be, based on studies and research,"

"We're off the mark," Hotch spoke up, leaning his arms against the table, and Gideon pointed a finger towards the Unit Chief.

"Because of two missing elements," he said.

"Sex and power," Derek answered, staring into space as he continued to spin the lighter around. "The two motives that drive a serial arsonist,"

"And without 'em," Gideon continued, letting out a small scoff and shaking his head. "We do _not_ have a profile,"

☆☆☆

After Gideon ran into one of the college students doing campus patrol, and Hotch and Reid went to interview the chem students to see if any of them knew how the arsonist had set the fires, Garcia called, saying that an odd phone call had come in on the tipline that Gideon had set up just before Professor Wallace was killed, to see if the unsub would contact them.

Apparently, he had. Though, that wasn't to say that the call wasn't _uber-weird_.

" _Karen_ ," it sounded like the caller was saying, though the voice was so distorted, Cassie could hardly understand it at all. " _I do this for Karen_ ,"

"Is he saying, _Karen_?" Cassie asked after Morgan had played the call for what felt like the seventeenth time, but Gideon just seemed to fall deeper into concentration.

"Play it again," he said simply, and Derek glanced at him.

"The call came from the office right next to Wallace's _five minutes_ before the fire was started," he explained, but Gideon just closed his eyes and tilted his head closer to the speaker.

"Play it again," he repeated, and Cassie and Derek glanced at each other before Cassie shrugged, and Morgan hit ' _play_ '. After it had finished, Gideon leaned even closer to the speaker. "Again, louder,"

Cassie reached past Derek's shoulder and turned up the volume on the speaker, before her partner hit ' _play_ ' again.

" _Karen. I do this for Karen_ ," 

Now, that Cassie thought about it, there _was_ something odd about the phone call. Aside from it being from a murderous arsonist, that is. Maybe it was just the way that the caller pronounced _Karen_ , but there was something... _off_ about the call.

"What is it?" Hotch spoke up after the call had ended once more, but Gideon just shook his head.

"I'm not sure," the other agent began. "Somethin' about it,"

"Is this tape clean?" Hotch asked, turning towards Derek and Cassie, and Morgan flicked his hand, before everyone dispersed, leaving Derek and Cassie to call Garcia, to see what the other hacker could do.

" _I could put it through some audio filters_ ," the blonde said when Morgan gave the request, just as Cassie grabbed an extra chair, and subsequently pushed Derek out of the way.

"Penny," Cassidy began, as Derek gave her a vaguely offended look from out of the webcam's frame before he pushed back so Garcia would be able to see both of them. "You know we need this as close to the original voice as possible, along with any background noise. Can you do it?"

" _You're asking me that as if you can't, Sunshine,_" Penelope retorted.

"Yeah, well, I left my laptop on the jet," Cassidy rolled her eyes, ignoring the way Morgan covered up his laugh with a cough before she looked towards Garcia again. "Can you?"

" _Okay_ ," Cassie's friend began again. " _You know how on Star Trek when Captain Kirk asks McCoy to do something totally impossible, and McCoy says 'Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker'?"_

Cassie blinked.

"I've actually never seen Star Trek," she began, eliciting a sharp and slightly-horrified sounding gasp from Garcia. "So, I have no idea what you're talking about, but are you saying Derek and I _can't_ expect a miracle?"

" _No,_ " Penelope answered simply, giving both of them a smile. " _I'm saying I'm not a doctor_ ," Morgan and Cassie both let out laughs before Cassidy glanced again at Garcia.

"You're a life-saver, Penelope," she told her friend, before going to hang up the call. "Thanks," When she had turned off the webcam, Cassie turned to Morgan, who was staring at her, looking slightly surprised.

"You've never seen Star Trek?" he asked, and Cassie shrugged.

"Nope," she answered simply, before sending Derek a look. "You have?"

Morgan shrugged. "Reid's dragged me through enough marathons of that show that I know enough about it to understand what _Garcia's_ talking about,"

"Sounds rough," Cassie grinned, and her partner hissed a breath out from between his teeth.

"You have _no_ idea," he muttered, before sighing again and pushing himself from his chair. "Okay, you want to go see what Turner's found out about whoever _Karen_ is?"

"You're deflecting," Cassie observed simply, though she was smiling as she too stood up from her chair, walking over to where Derek was already standing with the door open. "But, you have a point. Who knows when the unsub will set his next fire? We should get started sooner rather than later,"

The two returned to the small reception area just as Dean Turner finished printing the final in a large stack of pictures of different women, and Cassie had a feeling they were _all_ named Karen.

" _These_ ," Ellen began. "Are all the women on campus with the first name Karen," There were a _lot_ of young women named Karen at this college. Who knew it was such a common name? When Cassie said as much to Derek, her partner just shrugged.

"Then we better get started,"

It didn't take as long as Cassie thought it would get all the Karens on campus lined up outside the room used as their base of operations.

But, what _did_ take a long time was trying to figure out what any of the Karens might do that would instigate someone to start setting fires all over campus and kill people because of it.

Cassie and Morgan had just finished interviewing the seventh Karen when Cassidy shut the door, closing her and Derek off from the rest of the college students, and leaned her head against the wood, sighing heavily.

" _That_ ," she breathed, moving some hair from where it had fallen in front of her eyes, and turned back to Derek. "Was Karen #7,"

"You know, there's gotta be a faster way to do this," Morgan said, tossing the list of Karen's back onto the desk. Even he was losing his patience.

Patience had never been one of Cassie's strong suits (one of the reasons she hated stakeouts), and her tolerance had run out at Karen #4.

"How 'bout we just change the first question to ' _Have you recently dated a homicidal pyromaniac?'_ ," Derek asked as Cassie sat down across from him again, and the woman grinned.

"Right," she retorted, narrowing her eyes teasingly. "Because I'm sure that'll go over _real_ well. Speaking of questions," Cassie added after a moment, making Morgan glance at her. "You figured out yet why the Footpath Killer stuttered? I know Elle's been thinking about it since we left D.C., but I was just wondering what you thought,"

"You're asking me this _now_?" Derek asked, peering at Cassie over the top of his coffee cup, and Agent Quinn shrugged.

"I got bored an hour ago," she said simply. "So? Did you?"

" _Nope_ ," Morgan answered simply, popping the ' _p'_. "You?"

"If I did," Cassie began, tilting her head. "I _probably_ wouldn't be asking you if you had. But, what I _do_ know, is that, aside from what I said yesterday about stutters being caused by injuries to the frontal lobe, embarrassment can also cause an already present stutter to get worse, and when you're flustered, it's more difficult to control the articulatory musculature of your face,"

For a few seconds, Derek stared at the woman across from him in shock, before he leaned towards Cassie, reached out, and poked her nose.

"You, my dear Angel," he began, smirking. "Sound a whole lot like Reid,"

In response, Cassie just stuck her tongue out at him, to which Morgan laughed. He knew that Cassidy Quinn was smarter than most people, and the sheer length that her knowledge could go to never ceased to amaze him.

"How many Karens do we have left?" Cassie asked after a couple more moments of the two of them sitting around, and Derek flipped through the list for a few seconds, before sighing.

"One-hundred-and-ninety-four," he muttered, and Cassie blinked at him.

"You're kidding," she said, but Morgan just shook his head, eliciting a groan from Cassie. 

"Let's hope at least _one_ of them dated a pyromaniac," Derek added before Cassie stood up from her chair and walked over to the door. 

"Karen," she began ushering the next young woman inside the room, before sending Morgan a look. "Number eight,"

Only 193 to go.

☆☆☆

Cassie didn't know how long it had taken, but she and Morgan had _finally_ gotten through all 201 Karens that were on the Bradshaw College student list, and they had found...absolutely nothing.

Not _one_ of the Karens could think of anyone who might be the arsonist. Most had been horrified at the notion, some had been flattered (a fact that Cassie found dreadfully concerning), but once all was said and done, she and Derek had been no closer to finding the identity of their unsub than they'd been when they started.

Now, Cassie had just called Garcia, while Reid was on the other side of the room, and Morgan had left to get some air. Apparently, the room had been getting a little stuffy.

But, it looked as if Penelope wasn't having much luck with decoding the phone call either.

" _Okay, Sunshine,_ " Garcia began. " _I've put this thing through every audio filter I've got. There's only one thing I can tell you for sure,_ "

"Which is?" Cassie asked, her impatience leaking through, and after a moment, Penelope continued.

" _This guy isn't saying 'Karen',_ " the other hacker began, and Cassie slammed her forehead against the desk as Penelope continued. " _It's more like 'Ka-rone'_ ,"

"That could've been helpful _three hours ago_ ," Cassidy muttered, before speaking into her cell phone again. "Penny, what the hell is _Ka-rone_?"

" _If I figure it out_ ," Garcia started. " _Does it mean a night of passionate love-making with my lovely Chocolate Thunder_?"

"I don't know about that," Cassie responded, though she was grinning. "You'll have to ask Derek about that, but I'm sure Reid would be up to it," From the corner of her eye, Cassie saw Spencer spin around as she said his name, but when Reid didn't say anything, Cassie began to listen again to Garcia.

" _You're no fun_ ," the blonde muttered, and Cassie let out a small laugh.

" _Goodbye,_ Penelope," she said, and turned to Reid, just as Morgan walked back in the room. "Glad you're back," Cassie told her partner quickly, before turning to Spencer. "Garcia says the unsub wasn't saying ' _Karen_ ' in his phone call,"

"You're kidding," Morgan muttered, a bit pissed that he and Cassie had interviewed all those college students for nothing, and Cassie glanced at him.

"That was my reaction too," she said, before waving a hand. "Penny said that the arsonist is saying something more like--"

"Charown," Before Cassie could finish, Gideon burst into the room, cutting Cassie off, and looking like a bat out of hell before the older agent made a beeline for Reid. "Charown. I do it because of Charown,"

"It's Hebrew," the young genius began, and Derek and Cassie glanced at each other before walking over so they could hear the other two better.

"It's God's burning anger," Gideon continued, seeming as if he had just had this earth-shaking revelation, and Cassie had a feeling that he had. 

"The motive is now religious?" Elle asked as she and Hotch entered the room, and Gideon nodded, walking over to the whiteboard.

"Well, you know," Reid piped up. "In a lot of religions, God is related to fire,"

"Well, Agni is Fire in Hinduism," Hotch continued, and Cassie nodded.

"Like Hephaestus in Greek Mythology," she added, and Reid nodded. "And Judaism sees God as a pillar of fire, while Christians worship God as an all-consuming fire,"

"Ok, so we're looking for a theology major," Derek added from his spot across the room. "Maybe he's punishing the other students for their sins,"

"What--What's the most sinful place on campus?" Elle asked, glancing towards Morgan, who only shrugged.

"Come on Elle," Derek told her. "When I was in college, that was everywhere,"

"That surprises no one," Cassie muttered, and Morgan nudged her with his elbow as Hotch glanced at the two of them.

"A fraternity?" the Unit Chief asked, and Elle looked towards him. 

"A campus bar?" she asked, but this time, Cassie was the one who shook her head.

"No," the other brunette answered. "Because that's not consistent with the previous targets,"

"What about the idea of baptism by fire?" Morgan asked. "Aren't we all supposed to be tested by fire in _Revelations_?"

"Look," Gideon suddenly cut in, turning away from the whiteboard. "It's good, it's good, but _please_ do not jump to conclusions. Religion might be a part of it, but it's not necessarily the prime compulsion,"

" _Gideon_!" Morgan exclaimed, his voice bordering on snappish. "Rush to conclusions, jump to conclusions. Who cares?"

"We are _running_ out of time!" Cassie added. "If we don't figure this out soon, more people _will_ die!"

☆☆☆

Their entire profile had been wrong.

For one thing, the fires weren't even committed by a traditional serial arsonist, though whether or not Cassie could call _any_ arsonists traditional remained to be seen.

Instead, the fires seemed to have been set by Clara Hayes, one of the chemistry students that Hotch and Reid had met the first day the team was on campus, and she was suffering from an _extreme_ case of OCD, compelling her to set fires that had anything to do with the number three.

Now, all they had to do was find her.

"Okay, got it," Morgan said after he had gotten off the phone with Hotch as he and Cassie, plus some campus security officers rushed down the stairs. "Her apartment's off-campus,"

"How is he sure it's _this_ girl?" Cassie asked. Most of the time, she was confident in her Unit Chief's profiling skills, but even this was a bit on-the-nose.

But, judging from what Derek and Cassie found when they entered Clara's apartment, Hotch had been right once more.

Every wall of the apartment was plastered with what looked like different religious passages, along with various religious pictures, and the entire place was lit only with small candles and a few desk lamps, giving the entire place an eerie-looking glow.

But, it also didn't seem like Clara was in her apartment either, though that likely meant she was out, looking to set her next fire.

"Oh, you _gotta_ be kidding me," Morgan muttered as he and Cassidy both stared at the papers taped and stapled to the wall. "OCD? I'm thinking more like OMG," 

Cassie glanced at him as she lowered her gun. "OMG?" she asked, and Morgan tilted his head to the side as he continued to gaze at the walls.

"Oh my god," he explained, only for Cassie to send him a deadpan look.

"I have a thirteen-year-old sister, Derek," she told him. "I know what OMG means. I'm just surprised you do," Then, Cassie's eyes landed on a particular piece of paper stuck to the wall. " ' _A fire is kindled in my anger'_ ," she read off the quote. " ' _And shall burn unto the lowest hell.'_ Hmm, _Deuteronomy_ ,"

" ' _And again the fire of heaven came down and killed them all,'_ ," Derek read off another one, just as Cassie snapped her eyes to see a picture on the wall, of a cloaked figure pushing a gondola across a dark, murky river.

Oh, _duh_. Sometimes, she felt so dumb.

" ' _I do this for Charon._ '," she murmured, making Derek glance at her as Cassie waved a hand towards the picture. " _That's_ Charon. He's the entity in Greek mythology who ferries newly-died souls across the River Styx into the Underworld so they can be judged for their life's actions,"

"It's also the name of Pluto's only moon," Morgan added, making Cassie give him an odd look, only for her partner to shrug in response. "What?" he asked. "I know things,"

"I never said you didn't," Cassie told him, smiling as Derek continued wandering through Clara's apartment.

" _Paradise Lost_ ," the man called out. " ' _Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood of human sacrifice and parents' tears.'_ ,"

"Well," Cassie said, walking up to stand next to him. "Doesn't that sound cheery?" Then, as Cassie kept looking around the apartment, Derek sat down at Clara's table and called Reid, to see if the genius knew anything about this _Moloch_.

And of course, he did.

" _Moloch was the demon sun god of the Canaanites,_ " Spencer explained over the phone. " _In order to keep from incurring his wrath, the people would sacrifice their children to them by burning them alive,_ "

"Derek," Cassie calling his name made Morgan turn around, to see the brunette looking at him with a thoughtful look on her attractive face. "You know what magical thinking is?"

"Obsessive thoughts," Derek answered simply. "It's like a superstition. It controls them,"

"Like step on a crack, break your mother's back,"

Derek nodded, before walking around the apartment again. "Except _she_ actually believes it," he told Cassie before the woman reached up and fingered a newspaper article from several years ago that was hanging on the wall.

"God tested her with fire," she began softly, running her finger along a shelf. "And now when three threes-- _three threes_ show up around another person..."

"God tells her to test _them_ ," Morgan says, holding up a water bottle that was holding a solution that was likely _not_ water.

But, as much as they looked, Derek and Cassidy weren't able to find anything signaling where Clara might be. Campus security was searching inside the science building, but they hadn't had much luck so far.

And, by now, Morgan's patience was waning enough that he snapped at Hotch when the Unit Chief called to see what Derek and Cassie had found.

Or rather, what they _hadn't_ found.

"Hey, Hotch, we're looking, man," Derek said, as Cassie flipped through an old photo album across the room. "I don't think she would've left behind a day planner that says ' _set next fire here_ ' written in it,"

Cassie, glancing up as Morgan's voice raised a couple of octaves, set the photo album down and turned, pushing aside a curtain of beads that hung in the corner of the room.

"I under--wait until you see this place," Morgan continued, just as Cassie saw what was inside the small alcove behind the bead-curtain.

"Derek," she called over her shoulder, making her partner hang up on Hotch and walk over.

The alcove was a small closet, and on the shelves were glass bottles, filled with the same solution that had been in the water bottle, along with a piece of cloth hanging out the top.

Molotov cocktails. And there were a _lot_ of them.

"Derek," Cassie began as she stared at the bottles. "There are at least _thirty_ bombs here,"

"What the hell is she planning?" Morgan muttered, before calling Hotch again.

Even after the building had been sealed, and all the students had been evacuated, they _still_ weren't able to find Clara Hayes.

But, as it turned out, they didn't need to.

☆☆☆

Clara had trapped three of her classmates in a stalled elevator and had tried to subsequently set them on fire, but Gideon and Hotch had managed to apprehend her, and no one had been hurt.

Well, Hotch had shot Clara in the leg, but Cassie meant was no one had _died_.

One thing that was still bothering her though, as she sat on the jet as the team flew home, was that Cassidy still didn't know _exactly_ why the Footpath Killer stuttered.

She had been thinking about it off and on during this entire case, and she still had no idea. Elle had said that she thought Gideon didn't even know why the serial killer did it, that he had just been stalling, but Cassie didn't buy it.

Gideon knew why the Footpath Killer stuttered, but whether or not he was willing to share (Cassie was willing to bet not) remained to be seen.

☆☆☆

_Faulkner once said, "Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."_


End file.
